Little House and Living Water
Jesus said that we will be filled with the living water, that eternal life will gush forth in us. This water will leave us fully satisfied, satiated, and quenched. But we are creatures who get parched very easily and we need a steady diet of living water. From what pools are you drinking? Too many of us drink from the pools of popularity, the pursuit of wealth and happiness, alcohol, sex, grumbling, or narcissism. To all who are thirsty: Jesus offers himself, he invites us to be satisfied in him. He will not run dry.
Do You Know What I have Done To You?
Maundy Thursday is charged with so much historical electricity, such thick theological meaning that you can’t take a step or two without bumping into a significant biblical theme. It’s like a one-pot meal: Passover, Eucharist, sacrificial lambs, foot washing, stripping the altar, pain, passion, servitude, glory, forgiveness, and divine love all mixed together.
Substitutiary Locomotion?
On this Fifth Sunday in Lent, the final Sunday before the Sunday of the Passion and the commencing of Holy Week, the lectionary offers us up a heavy and necessary dose of hopeful fortification for the things to come. After the pomp and circumstance of next week’s procession of palms, we will be thrust into the depths of the crucifixion, into the agony of the cross and tragically tremendous terror that is the fallenness of humanity. It will be so easy for us to enter into the narrative and lose sight of the fact that Jesus is not helpless in his hour of need, but rather the Powerful One has allowed himself to be powerless that humanity’s perpetual propensity for sin might extinguish and exhaust itself upon his life and body.
All Rise: The Passion and Killing a Mockingbird
The Sunday of the Passion isn’t about palms or donkeys or songs, beloved, it is about the cross. And in the shadow of the cross we come to the sickening understanding that we can sing, “All glory, laud, and honor” and then cry out, “Let him be crucified,” days later.
Give Up: An Ash Wednesday Sermon
want you to know that there is hope at the end of this, there is light at the end of the penitential tunnel, there is peace to be found, there is joy to be embraced, there is glory in our midst. In order to find the hope, light, peace, joy, and glory we must have a shift of perspective and discover the remedy to our heart condition and sin-sick souls.